In many heat exchanger installations such as tube-in shell heat exchangers and boilers employing tubes therein, it is often necessary to remove tubes from the tube sheets in which they are mounted so that they can be replaced. This may be necessary for many reasons such as leaks in the tubes or excessive scale formation therein. In the assembly of the heat exchangers, it is standard practice to feed the tubes through one tube sheet and into the opposite one. The tubes are then expanded at each end into engagement with the tube sheets and are securely held therein by the hoop stresses created by the expanding process. If the tubes are too long, excess material may be removed in a tube facing operation.
Many devices are available for quickly pulling a defective tube outwardly through the tube sheet of a heat exchanger. Prior to the extraction of the tube, it is necessary to detach the opposite end of the tube from the tube sheet at the opposite end of the heat exchanger. The two segments of the tube may then be removed from the respective tube sheets by conventional methods.